At present, international roaming charges relatively high, and a subscriber usually needs to pay high roaming charges for a data service used during roaming. Currently, the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) promotes “decoupling” between a roaming service and a local service, so as to implement that a subscriber can select a roaming service provider (ARP, Alternative Roaming Provider) in a roaming area, so that roaming charges are reduced, and a subscriber benefits from an increasingly attractive roaming price. Local breakout (LBO) is one of implementation technical solutions recommended by the BEREC.
As one of solutions for implementing “decoupling” between a roaming service and a local service, LBO is a solution in which a visited network operator provides a data service for a subscriber, a home operator does not need to participate in the providing of the data service except for performing authorization and authentication on a subscriber identity module (SIM) card, and the visited operator serves as an alternative roaming service provider. For convenience of a subscriber, the BEREC specifies a uniform access point name (APN), and different roaming service providers may provide a roaming service for the subscriber by using the APN. In an LBO scenario, a roaming service provider may be a visited network operator (MNO, Mobile Network Operator), or may be a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO, Mobile Virtual Network Operator). The MVNO generally refers to an operator that does not have a business license or whose development scale is limited, and that develops its own subscriber by using an existing network of a basic mobile operator and provides a service for the subscriber. Because in an LBO scenario, a roaming service provider may be a visited network operator, or may be an MVNO that leases a resource of the visited network operator, it is of significant importance to differentiate who should provide a roaming service, which relates to gateway selection and charging settlement.
In a process of studying and practicing the prior art, the inventor of the present invention finds that, in an LBO scenario, if an MVNO serves as a roaming service provider to provide a roaming service, because an international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) of a subscriber is a home IMSI, a visited network cannot differentiate the roaming service provider by using the IMSI; moreover, because APNs of multiple roaming service providers are defined in a uniform manner, which roaming service provider provides a service cannot be learned by using the APNs, either. That is, in a case in which the MVNO serves as a roaming service provider, the roaming service provider cannot be identified and differentiated in the prior art, which causes a problem that, for example, a gateway cannot be subsequently selected.